


Luxe / Redux

by orestesfasting



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drug Addiction, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers to Enemies, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Season/Series 02, that's an abridged trajectory to say the least, these two are a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orestesfasting/pseuds/orestesfasting
Summary: He’s not sure what he’s more angry about, is the thing. The betrayal or the subsequent lie.Or—maybe that’s not quite true. He knows which one he’s more angry about, and he knows that rationally itshouldbe the other one. But needless to say, if Kendall had told him the truth about why he did what he did, Stewy wouldn’t be heading to his place uninvited at 11PM on a Saturday night, brimming with righteous fury like the proverbial woman scorned.
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 27
Kudos: 115





	Luxe / Redux

**Author's Note:**

> takes place between episodes 2.01 "the summer palace" and 2.02 "vaulter", and references a good amount of dialogue from [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydCNhV61ww).

“Evil is a relay sport / When the one who’s burned / Turns to pass the torch”  
Fiona Apple, “Relay”

* * *

Against his better judgment, Stewy texts Kendall barely 23 hours after their underground meeting at Le Bernardin. His only other option as far as he can tell is to never speak to him again, which, if he’s being realistic—and Stewy always takes great care to be so—is kind of a non-option anyway. And the truth is that at a certain point, spending hours pacing your apartment fuming and trying not to text someone becomes more pathetic than it would be to just text them. So he does, knowing the best he can hope for is that Kendall will perceive his chagrin just by grace of knowing him, and in the end that’s something he’s willing to stake his pride on. _We need to talk._

The response comes not immediately but within two minutes, which provides some small amount of vindication, at least. Then again it’s not like Kendall’s ever been good at playing coy. _Great line did you come up with that yourself._ And then, _There’s nothing left to talk about._

Stewy rolls his eyes. Getting through to Kendall is hard enough when they’re face to face, of which last night served as an annoyingly grim reminder. He downs the rest of his whiskey soda, slumps back heavily on the couch, and taps out: _Are u home right now?_

_Why do you ask._

_So that’s a yes  
_ _I’m coming over_

_Do not._

_Why?_

_You don’t know my new address for one thing and for another need I remind you you’re supposed to hate my guts right now._

_You underestimate my sleuthing abilities  
_ _About the other thing we can discuss it when I get there_

His phone dings twice more in quick succession as he stands in front of the bathroom mirror, running a comb through his hair.

 _Don’t.  
_ _I mean it._

Stewy stows his phone in his coat pocket, pours some extra kibble for Marlene Dietrich, and heads out the door. By the time the final text comes—a last-ditch _Fuck you_ —he’s already in a cab and halfway to Chelsea.

+

He’s not sure what he’s more angry about, is the thing. The betrayal or the subsequent lie.

Or—maybe that’s not quite true. He knows which one he’s more angry about, and he knows that rationally it _should_ be the other one. But needless to say, if Kendall had told him the truth about why he did what he did, Stewy wouldn’t be heading to his place uninvited at 11PM on a Saturday night, brimming with righteous fury like the proverbial woman scorned. The lie was as much of a betrayal as the actual betrayal, he thinks, and then almost laughs in the back of the cab as he imagines running that little musing by Sandy. _Sure he fucked us over on a Shakespearian level, but did you hear the fucking PR line he gave me as an explanation? Like I was Savannah Guthrie and not his best fucking friend?_

It’s unfamiliar territory, is all, and Stewy just thinks he deserves to know why he’s landed himself there after thirty years of being someone Kendall could more or less trust. The only person he could trust, really, on a few matters of import, and Stewy can’t help but believe, despite all the times he’s played along to the contrary, that the thing between them is exactly that. A matter of import.

By the time the cab drops him off outside Kendall’s new building, one of the hideous luxury high-rises near the piers, Stewy’s gotten himself worked up. He clicks his jaw irritably as the doorman intercoms Kendall for the all-clear, and when he steps inside the penthouse elevator he suddenly wishes he’d had another drink or two before he left home.

After a disorientingly smooth ride, the kind that makes you question whether the elevator is really moving at all, the chrome doors slide open almost silently on a dimly lit hallway. From another room he can hear the distant thumping of music, some lo-fi algorithm-friendly garbage Kendall probably thinks is cool. Stewy runs a hand through his hair and steps out of the elevator, at which point he spots Kendall, standing uneasily in a doorway to his left.

His shoulders are slightly hunched, his fists shoved deep into the pockets of his joggers; the shadows pooled under his eyes are dark enough to look like bruises. He looks, to be honest, like shit, so Stewy tells him so.

“Well don’t you look nice. All gussied up.”

Kendall’s eyes flicker up to Stewy’s briefly to deliver a scowl, then drop away again. “Wasn’t planning on seeing anyone tonight.”

“No, no, I get it,” Stewy says sardonically, knowing he’s already overdoing it. “Wouldn’t want you to get changed out of your jim-jams for little ol’ me.”

With that he pushes past Kendall into the living room. It’s no less dark and beige than the hallway—sparsely lit, sparsely decorated, the long leather sectional and the enormous flatscreen looking untouched and utterly pointless. A giant slab of marble, also beige, takes up the expanse of one wall.

“Wow, Ken,” Stewy says, looking around. He shrugs out of his coat and flings it over the back of the sofa. “It’s like you’re not even pretending to be cultured anymore. Where’s all your tasteful little antiques, huh? Not making your lackeys go to Sotheby’s auctions for you anymore?” He picks up a coffee table book of Annie Leibovitz portraits, flicks through it once and puts it back down, rolling his eyes. “This place looks like mine, dude. Ugly fuckin’ glass highrise, all this monochrome shit. Only I never claimed to be anything but a basic rich fuck.”

“It’s Fashion Week,” Kendall mutters from the doorway. Stewy turns on his heel to look at him. “All the good penthouses were taken.”

“Oh, sure. It’s Fashion Week, he says. Like I didn’t know.” He saunters over to the marble slab on the wall, pinches the corner between forefinger and thumb and gives it a little shake to test how well it’s mounted. It doesn’t budge. “And what was wrong with the townhouse, hm? You clog the shower drains with your, your sad little morning fap-athons? You know they have these people called plumbers nowadays who could come fix that, right? You don’t have to go out and buy a new house every time.”

“Uh-huh.” Kendall shifts, lifting his head and crossing his arms over his chest. “Listen, man, if you just came here to talk shit it might be better to reschedule, alright? It’s late. I gotta get up early tomorrow.”

“Oh, no shit? Daddy got you going to Sunday mass now, is that part of the deal? He thinks you don’t have enough Catholic guilt on top of, uh—” He gestures vaguely at Kendall’s person. “—everything else?”

“It’s Sophie’s birthday. We’re taking her and Iverson to Brightstar Park.”

Stewy sticks out his lower lip, puts a hand over his heart. “Isn’t that cute. You pretending to be a good dad.”

“I am a good dad,” Kendall retorts, to his credit. He doesn’t sound like he believes it, but then again that’s just how his voice is. Stewy ignores him, walking around the sofa and flopping down on it.

“Well since it _is_ so late, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind fixing us a nightcap, would you?” He puts his feet up on the coffee table, watching as Kendall’s mouth draws into a thin line. “Scotch rocks if you please, Macallan if you’ve got it. Two, two and a half fingers should do the trick.”

Kendall opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it, perhaps realizing, Stewy conjectures, that he could use a drink as well. He nods sullenly and turns back down the hallway.

“Trusting you not to poison me here!” Stewy calls after him. “I’m very dense, you know, all muscle-bound and sinewy. This isn’t a body you wanna have to chop up.”

He sighs and tips his head back over the sofa, and when he can’t stand to stare at the ceiling anymore he gets up and goes to the windows that span the far wall. The million little lights of Manhattan stare back at him, the Empire State Building unmissable on the left. It’s a nice view, he concedes, especially considering that the windows on the opposite side of the penthouse must not have anything but New Jersey to look at.

He wouldn’t have noticed Kendall reenter the room if it weren’t for the ice clinking musically in the crystal tumblers in his hands. He approaches Stewy and wordlessly hands him the one with amber liquid, keeping the clear one for himself.

“Right on,” Stewy says, taking a grateful sip. Kendall stands at a careful distance from him, holding his glass tightly, eyes fixed on the floor.

“So,” Kendall says finally, “what, uh, what’s this about, then, huh? ’Cause I wasn’t shitting you when I said there was nothing to talk about, man.”

His eyes are as flat as his voice, when he finally looks up at Stewy. Deadened and hard. Stewy recalls suddenly and vividly a night twenty years ago, standing up on the roof deck at Felipe’s in Harvard Square, armed with fake IDs, their final exams of freshman year freshly behind them. Kendall had been staring sullenly into his paloma, positive he’d failed his macroeconomics final; but one good, stupid-ass joke from Stewy was all it took for his face to crack open, his dark eyes brightening like an actual switch had flicked on behind them. His emotions wheeled from one extreme to another at breakneck speed in those days, but all Stewy ever had to do was give the barest flick of his wrist and the yo-yo would come spinning back up to land in his palm.

Kendall’s face is unreadable now, beyond the fuck-off death mask. Of course he’d eventually learned how to bottle shit up—that survival skill so crucial Stewy had always been amazed it had taken him so long in the first place. He has the ability now to summon some semblance of a poker face, if not a very good one. But this is different. Stewy noticed that look in the restaurant last night, the uncanniness of it, the way looking at Kendall made his stomach plummet like he’d just received terrible news. He’d hoped at the time that it was just something about the underground light. _What are you, his sherpa now?_ he’d asked, _The little skull tied to his belt? Because I’m fuckin’ scared._ It was a taunt, of course, but there was some truth to it, too; Stewy realizes that now. Whatever it was that had broken Kendall down so utterly, it couldn’t be anything but fucking terrifying.

“Look, man,” Stewy says on an exhale, scrubbing a hand over his face, “honestly? I wanted to give you another chance to play that friend card. I was saying some nasty things last night—not that you didn’t deserve them—but I really did mean it, you know, when I offered it to you.” Kendall’s eyes drop back to the floor, but Stewy dips his head, unrelenting, chasing after his gaze until he catches it again. “You can talk to me, dude,” he says. “Play the friend card. I don’t think—I don’t think you gave it its due consideration.”

Kendall looks at him and blinks, and for one brief moment the death mask falters, betrays a hint of what’s hiding underneath. But before Stewy can see it well enough to figure out what it is, it’s gone again.

“Uh-huh,” Kendall says, raising his glass to his lips and taking a drink. “So, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re pretending this is purely a charity call, then, is that it? You’re just here to make me feel better?”

“Don’t be crass.”

“You’re really saying this has nothing to do with the fact that I, I fucked you out of taking over my family’s company and now—what, you want my head for it?”

Stewy resists, with substantial difficulty, the urge to roll his eyes. “Obviously I’m pissed about the fucking deal, Ken. But after the shareholder vote, man, Sandy and I are gonna get what we came for anyway, alright? So yeah, if you can believe it, the money doesn’t currently top my list of concerns.”

“What, and I do?”

Stewy says nothing, just raises his eyebrows at Kendall as he takes a sip of his whiskey.

Kendall blows a short puff of air out through his nose as he turns and heads for the sofa. He sits down stiffly with his feet planted firmly on the floor, and Stewy follows him and sits with his legs crossed, being sure to leave a solid foot of cushion between them. He angles his body towards Kendall and watches his sloping profile carefully.

“Okay, so—so what does the friend card cover,” Kendall asks finally.

“I mean, historically speaking? Various and sundry, wouldn’t you say?”

Kendall doesn’t take the bait. “Even if I’m a… a fuckin’, whatever the fuck you called me last night?”

“A pusillanimous piece of fool’s gold, I think was the term.”

“The fuck does that even mean, dude.”

“Google it on your little Google machine, Kenny. It’s not very nice.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

Stewy shrugs and takes a drink. “To answer your earlier question, yes, even then. Unless you plan to make good on your threat to murder Marlene Dietrich, of course.”

Kendall turns to look at him ruefully, his lips pursed. “Sorry about that, man.”

“‘Kill your pets and fuck your wives,’ I mean, Jesus, Ken. Fuckin’ Godfather wannabe.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Marlene Dietrich would go down that easy. She won’t even let me scratch her ears.”

“She does kind of hate you,” Stewy agrees. “Her instincts are good like that.”

Kendall allows it, the corners of his mouth turning up for the first time all night. He glances at Stewy sidelong as he takes a sip of his drink, his eyes crinkled at the corners.

“So…” Stewy prompts, feeling emboldened, and then immediately wishes he hadn’t. Kendall balks, his smile faltering as he shifts on the sofa and crosses his legs uneasily.

“So,” Kendall says haltingly, “so, I mean. It’s not something you’re just gonna, like, sweet-talk out of me, bro.”

“I’m not trying to get it out of you,” Stewy says, trying his best to conceal his exasperation. “Ken, seriously, what material good would this intel do me? I can’t get you to un-fuck the deal. Like you said, man, by all rights I should be, like, sending you boxes of dog shit in the mail. But I can tell, you know, that whatever this is?” He shifts into Kendall’s line of vision until he’s forced to make eye contact. “It’s not all business. And it’s fucking you up. And I’m just saying, you know… you used to trust me with the shit that was fucking you up.”

Kendall’s eyes dart to Stewy’s and then skitter away just as fast. He’s holding his glass in front of his mouth, but through it Stewy can see him chewing his lip, his eyebrows furrowed, his gaze trained now on Stewy’s knee.

“Hey,” Stewy tries again. He takes Kendall’s glass from him gently and sets it on the coffee table beside his own. “Real human thing in front of you, remember?” He reaches out and grasps Kendall’s wrist, drags it across the space between them and holds it up to his own face. He gives it a shake, patting his own cheek with Kendall’s hand; a small shiver runs across his scalp at the sensation which he does his best to ignore. “Got a beating heart and everything, I promise.” As if to prove it Stewy moves Kendall’s hand down to his own chest and holds it there firmly.

Kendall swallows audibly. At some point the fuzzy thumping of the music in the other room had stopped. Stewy registers the near-silence at the same time that he notices the palpable shift in the atmosphere, and this, finally, is familiar: the uneasy thrill of deja-vu as their words trickle to a halt, the air crystallizing around them. Both of them holding their breath, not because they don’t know what’s about to happen but because they do. How many times have they been here before?

“Stew…” Kendall murmurs, his fingers twisting into the folds of Stewy’s shirt. His eyes no longer flat but wide and wary.

With the hand not holding Kendall to his chest, Stewy reaches for his face. He traces the pad of his forefinger across Kendall’s lower lip, and it’s the only prompting Kendall needs to open his mouth, just wide enough for Stewy to slip his finger inside.

Kendall draws in a shaky breath through his nose, his eyelids falling shut as he curls his tongue around Stewy’s finger. For a moment the curtain drops over everything else and all Stewy’s aware of is the delirious heat of Kendall’s mouth, the gentle scrape of teeth over skin. He makes a low, quiet sound in his throat without meaning to, and Kendall’s eyes flicker open to stare at him with heavy-lidded intensity.

“What do you want, Kendall,” Stewy says, keeping his voice low so it doesn’t come out strained. He drags his finger out of Kendall’s mouth and smears a trail of saliva over his full lower lip.

Kendall’s throat works for a moment before he glances away, giving a tiny shake of the head.

“Ken.”

“Do you have anything?”

He at least has the grace to look slightly sheepish. Stewy narrows his eyes at him, trying not to identify the slight sinking feeling in his gut as disappointment. “Not much,” he mutters, and reaches for his coat draped over the back of the sofa. From an inside pocket he extracts a small glass vial. Kendall reaches for it, but Stewy smacks his hand away and climbs into his lap before he can protest, knees on either side of Kendall’s hips.

“This is legit all I have,” he says as he uncaps the vial, tapping out a small pile of white powder onto the back of his hand. “So don’t accuse me of holding out on you.”

He brings his closed fist up to Kendall’s face, cupping the back of his head with the other hand. Kendall presses one nostril shut and leans in, inhales sharply once, twice, then falls back against the sofa with his eyes pinched shut. Stewy runs his finger through the residue left on the back of his hand and slips it into Kendall’s slack mouth to rub it into his gums.

For himself he taps out a smaller bump, just enough to feel the numbness at the back of his throat and the sharp spark behind his eyes. Kendall’s hands are splayed on Stewy’s thighs, gripping him tightly as Stewy licks the leftover powder off his fist and stows the empty vial back into his coat pocket. Then he takes Kendall’s face in both hands.

“Okay,” he says, as Kendall blinks up at him dazedly. “Now tell me what you really want.”

Kendall’s eyes are all pupil but for the slim ring of hazel around the edge. His mouth opens and closes, and finally he chokes out, “Don’t make me say it, bro.”

Stewy hums. “No,” he says, leaning in past the point of no return. “I’m gonna make you say it.”

Kendall’s mouth opens for him instantly, a soft groan escaping his throat. He’s never been a great kisser, a fact that hasn’t changed much in the years since they did this last, but what he lacks in finesse he usually makes up for in enthusiasm. Tonight, though, that enthusiasm is tinged with something else. Something a little desperate in the way his fingertips scrabble for purchase on the back of Stewy’s shirt, in the way his labored breath hitches loudly in his throat. Stewy keeps up with him, kissing him open-mouthed and hard, their teeth clacking together as he rocks down into Kendall’s lap.

Kendall swears, his hips jolting, and when Stewy breaks away to kiss his jaw Kendall clutches at him and says, voice already wrecked, “Can you—I want—uh. Can you fuck me. Please. Please.”

Stewy forces himself to regain control of his face before he leans away from Kendall, sitting back on his haunches to look at him. Beneath the three-day stubble Kendall’s freckled cheeks are flushed pink, his forehead lightly beaded with coke sweat. He’s betrayed Stewy and lied to him, and if ever there was a time he was handsome it surely isn’t now, but when Stewy looks down at him there’s still that old feeling in his belly, lifting its head and sniffing the air hopefully—not just desire, but greed. Hungry and undeniable. He can almost feel his mouth water.

“Get undressed, Kendall.”

+

Because he doesn’t remember exactly when or how it started, it’s easy for Stewy to think of it as something that’s just always been. No beginning, and—though this part he’s less certain of these days—no end. It’s admittedly a pretty lofty way of describing something that, regardless of specifics, first crawled out of a greasy primordial soup made of equal parts drug-induced mania and adolescent horniness, and over the following decades grew into a many-headed monster that subsisted on a diet of nostalgia and embarrassment and unexamined feelings.

It didn’t begin the summer they were seventeen, but it may as well have. Stewy remembers waking up under fresh linen sheets in a guest room at the Roys’ Hamptons home, which he obstinately refused to refer to by its gaudy proper name. In between willing away persistent bouts of nausea, Stewy stared up at the pitched ceiling and tried desperately to contextualize the muddy, flickering memory he now found himself with: him and Kendall in the boathouse, his feet dangling into the water and his hand down the front of Kendall’s swim trunks. Kendall’s flushed, scrunched-up face when he came. Stewy didn’t know why he was so sure it wasn’t a dream, given how fuzzy it was. The fact of it was somehow both shocking, and not at all.

When he eventually got dressed and tottered feebly down the hall to Kendall’s room, he found him sitting in the middle of the floor with his head in his hands, naked but for his boxers.

“Hey, dude,” he croaked when Stewy sat down across from him. His face, honest to god, was slightly green.

“Hey.”

Kendall rubbed his eyes and groaned. “Gonna go back in time and fuckin’— _hic_ —kick our asses, man. I don’t even remember anything, d’you?”

“Uh,” said Stewy.

Something about his expression must have given him away, because when Kendall glanced up at him he frowned and said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

The frown persisted. “No, what? Did something—oh.” His eyes widened, his cheeks reddened. “Did we—?”

Stewy scratched at his nose, the patchy stubble on his jaw. “I don’t know. I think so. Yeah.”

“Ah.” Kendall laughed humorlessly and then groaned again, softer this time. “Jeez. Uh. Well, I hope it was better than, uh—you remember last time, after homecoming? When Magda McPherson wouldn’t put out for you, and we ended up....” He trailed off, looking sheepish.

“Oh,” said Stewy, who hardly remembered anything about homecoming, either during or after. “Yeah, no. Ha.”

Kendall glanced up at him again, worrying just slightly at his bottom lip. “Are we good, dude?”

It was a question about the present, but Stewy knew he was really referring to both the past and future. Was it okay, what happened? Will it be okay, never to speak of it again?

Whatever it was Stewy felt then (he’d dissect and identify it later, he told himself, and would keep telling himself for years), he swallowed down forcefully like bile. “’Course, man. Whatever.” He reached out and clapped Kendall bracingly on the shoulder.

“Right.” There was something a little off about Kendall’s grin. “Whatever.”

“I gotta say, though,” Stewy said quickly, “you don’t look too good right now.”

“Oh.” Kendall nodded seriously and wiped at his brow. “Yeah, uh, now that you mention it—” He hauled himself shakily to his feet and began shuffling towards the ensuite, and Stewy took the opportunity to book it back to his own room before the sound could trigger his own delicate stomach.

Afterwards, things were utterly normal between them. Which made sense, because in a way nothing had really changed. There was no time wasted on any boring crises, not when they both loudly belonged to the teenage boy’s Anything That Moves school of sexual thought, though in practice the only people they continued to hook up with were Nightingale-Bamford girls. It was just another layer to their storied friendship; another inside joke, if one they chose never to bring up. It seemed to Stewy that his relationship with Kendall had been defined in part by the way they played along with each other, or egged each other on—watching each other, reacting, waiting for the other to say sike—and this was no different. At any rate, Stewy tried to curb his drinking somewhat for the rest of that summer and into their senior year, focusing instead on his college applications (to the delight of his parents), and in all truthfulness he more or less forgot about what happened in the Hamptons, save for the occasional moments of liminal consciousness just before he fell asleep, when he could clearly picture the way the rippling water reflected on the boathouse walls in the dark.

He never expected for him and Kendall to go to college together, but when you get into Harvard—regardless of whether or not substantial family donations were involved—you go, so off they went. It hit them the way it was supposed to, at first. They befriended other rich assholes and put their livers through the ringer at least four nights a week; they pretended to fuck voraciously and in reality had two or three solid lays each by the end of their first semester. By the start of the next, the shine seemed to have worn off somewhat, and more and more they found themselves blowing off their new friends in favor of hanging out with each other. As Kendall put it one night while they sat stoned on the steps of the Widener, now that they’d drawn the conclusion that everyone else on campus was beneath them, why go on pretending otherwise? Stewy hadn’t been aware at the time that such a conclusion had been drawn, but now that he thought about it he could find no flaw in the logic.

Looking back, Stewy guesses it was around that time that the change happened. Both of them becoming more cognizant of what they wanted, if remaining just as unwilling to admit it. They still circled habitual rings around each other as though preparing for a face-off, only now it had become clear they were both spiraling towards the same point at the center, and so they did the obvious thing and met each other there, and began hooking up. In coat closets at the Spee Club, in secluded alcoves in the Lampoon Castle, in graffitied bathroom stalls at the Middle East—no matter the setting, the story that unfolded over the following three years was always the same: they were never sober, the sex was never amazing, and they never talked about it outright.

Not that they denied it, either. It was just a thing that was. And so they kept playing along, again and again, until it seemed they had mastered the game without ever discussing strategy.

They still dated other people, of course, but rarely for very long. Between them, Kendall held the longest record—six months with a Wellesley girl who then dumped him in the spring of their senior year. That night he showed up on the doorstep of Stewy’s Allston apartment looking like a puppy left out in the rain, and Stewy, whose boyfriend would cause a horrible scene the next morning by walking in on them, ended up lying awake in bed next to Kendall’s warm sleeping body and wondering at what point in the last twelve years the two of them had become more irreparably tangled than a pair of shitty earphones at the bottom of a backpack.

He thought it had been simple at one point. He could’ve sworn that their paths had once run side by side and parallel, the way they should have.

Not that it mattered, of course. He knew by then that the truth often had little to do with what you were willing to swear by.

+

Kendall lifts his t-shirt over his head and emerges tousle-haired. Stewy looks down at him appraisingly, eyes lingering on the sparse dark hair on his chest, the two moles by his left nipple; he looks, but doesn’t touch. His knees are aching by now so he climbs off Kendall’s lap and settles beside him, his arm draped along the back of the sofa and his fingers brushing the soft bristly hair on the back of Kendall’s neck.

“Those too,” Stewy says, nodding at Kendall’s joggers. “Off. Everything.”

Kendall flushes and hooks his thumbs over his waistband. He always used to tell Stewy he was a bossy little bitch in bed, and he wasn’t wrong, but Stewy knew Kendall only logged it as a complaint to hide the fact that he liked being told what to do. He still likes it, if his hard-on is any indicator. Kendall kicks his joggers and underwear off his feet awkwardly and then leans back stiffly against the sofa, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Stewy slides his hand across Kendall’s shoulders, fingertips pressing into the tight muscle. “Relax,” he murmurs, shifting closer until Kendall’s naked thigh is pressed against his own. Kendall’s dick is flushed dark, already leaking a bead of precome onto his abdomen, but Stewy restrains himself, places his free hand on Kendall’s warm inner thigh.

“You missed this, huh?” he breathes into Kendall’s ear, fingers snaking up the back of his neck and into his hair. Kendall draws in a ragged breath and tips his head back into Stewy’s hand. “Been what, three, four years now? After the RAV4 found a little dust on Sophie’s iPad and kicked you out?”

“Don’t call her that,” Kendall mutters, but Stewy’s other hand is sliding farther up his inner thigh now, and his voice comes out uneven.

“I’m just saying, Ken. Since college I’ve only ever been a pit-stop on your way to rehab. Don’t tell me you thought I hadn’t noticed.” He twists his fingers into the longer hair at the top of Kendall’s head and pulls, forcing him to bare his neck. “Getting all your bad habits out of your system in one go, and all that.” Leaning in, he sinks his teeth into the join of Kendall’s neck and shoulder and sucks a hot bruise into the skin until Kendall gives in and gasps. Then Stewy relents, licks the reddening spot. “You’re lucky my feelings are made of steel, motherfucker.”

“You don’t have any feelings,” Kendall grits out.

Stewy blinks, feeling his jaw clench before he recovers. “Oh yeah?”

He pulls his hand away from Kendall’s thigh, aborting its teasing upward crawl, and wraps it around his heavy cock instead. Kendall hisses like a lit fuse as Stewy strokes him twice, swiping his thumb through the wetness at the tip.

“Keep telling yourself that, bro.” He takes his hand away and shoves Kendall’s shoulder, hard. “Lie down.”

Kendall shoots him a dark look, but he goes down, stretching out on his stomach across the sofa cushions. Stewy picks up his glass of whiskey, gone a bit watery by now, and watches Kendall unabashedly from over the rim as he drinks. He looks good like this, the pale expanse of his body against the dark leather, one leg bent open invitingly. The muscles in his back and shoulders shifting as he drops his head into the crook of his arm. He looks good like this, but it’s not how Stewy wants him. Somehow tonight it feels like a cop-out.

“On your back,” he says, putting his glass down and standing up.

Kendall looks at him over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. “Why.”

“Because I want you to look at me, asshole. Turn over.”

Kendall hesitates a moment, and then shifts onto his back. “Never knew you to be such a romantic,” he mutters, taking his cock in hand and stroking himself lazily.

Something about his smirk sets Stewy on edge. “Did I say you could touch yourself,” he snaps.

Kendall’s smirk vanishes as he reddens, and obediently he brings his hand up to rest on his stomach.

Stewy toes off his shoes, then unbuttons his shirt and tosses it aside. He fumbles with his belt buckle and fly, and then he’s stepping out of his slacks, watching as Kendall’s eyes drop to where his erection is straining against the fabric of his boxer briefs. Stewy grabs his coat off the back of the sofa once again and rifles through the same inside pocket for a condom and a single-use packet of lube.

“You came prepared,” Kendall notes, his voice low. “Fuckin’ opportunist.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’ve always got this shit on me.” Stewy pushes Kendall’s bent legs open and kneels between them. “Coke-lube-condom. It’s like phone-keys-wallet only sexy.”

“Just be careful with the rubber, dude, I’m not trying to get herpes.”

“Shut the—fuck off, Kendall,” Stewy says, voice muffled as he rips the lube open with his teeth. The tang of synthetic raspberry on the tip of his tongue. He pours some onto his fingers, using his thumb to coat them. “You know I’m on the Valtrex, man.”

He tosses the packet and condom onto the coffee table, and then meets Kendall’s eyes. They’re dark and wide under a studious frown, his lips parted and bitten a mottled red. Stewy would know this look anywhere—Kendall, nervous and trying not to show it.

“I’m gonna touch you now,” Stewy tells him. Kendall nods jerkily up at him, and Stewy ignores the sudden, dull ache somewhere under his sternum.

He leans over Kendall and places one hand on his chest, fingers splayed, holding him down. With his other hand he reaches between his thighs. His palm brushes over his balls, and for a moment he considers saying something nasty— _Thought Daddy had these hanging from his rearview mirror nowadays_ —but finds he doesn’t particularly want to.

Kendall blinks up at him rapidly as Stewy traces his slick middle finger along the cleft of his ass, circling once before carefully pushing inside.

“Fuck,” Kendall breathes, drawing it out until Stewy’s in up to the knuckle. His eyelids flutter shut and his head falls to the side. Stewy drags his finger out again, and when he adds a second Kendall whimpers, so quietly Stewy wonders if he imagined it. He crooks his fingers inside him, and Kendall bites back what would’ve been a louder moan and throws an arm over his face.

 _Don’t do that_ , Stewy almost says, _now you’re too far away_ , though he’s still fucking him with his hand, watching his mouth fall open. The dim overhead light glints off a crooked front tooth.

“Okay,” Kendall mumbles between quick, shallow breaths. “I’m ready. C’mon.”

Stewy moves his unoccupied hand from Kendall’s chest to his forearm, dragging it away from his face, pinning him to the sofa cushion by the wrist.

“No you’re not,” he says. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kendall counters, but then Stewy pushes a third slick finger inside him and Kendall winces, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth. The hand not pinned to the sofa has an iron grip on Stewy’s hip, fingernails digging in painfully.

“Told you,” Stewy mutters. “Stop trying to self-flagellate, sicko.”

He’s used to this from Kendall. Back in college, when they managed to hook up in a bedroom rather than a bathroom stall, they usually did this the other way around. On the rare occasions Kendall did ask to get fucked, it was always when he was depressed, drunk on a deadly cocktail of self-loathing and self-pity. After a nasty phone call with Logan, more often than not, or, later, when he was relapsing and rehab-bound. He was always melodramatic about it: asking to be choked, to which Stewy occasionally acquiesced, and once even proclaiming he didn’t need lube, prompting Stewy to laugh in his face. Stewy could never summon the moral strength to put his foot down over it, but it still bothered him that Kendall had—probably still has—such fucked-up ideas about what it meant to have a dick in your ass. Not that Kendall ever would have referred to the act with any such degree of specificity. Once when Stewy made fun of him for not knowing the terms _top_ and _bottom_ Kendall turned red and said, “Well _sorry_ I’m not fluent in your faggy little dialect, Stew.” This though he’d been choking on Stewy’s dick the night before.

Does any of it matter now? Beneath him Kendall is arching his back, bearing down on Stewy’s hand, and Stewy blinks hard, feeling like he’s just been airdropped back into the present. He’s forgotten about this side-effect in the years since it last happened—how sleeping with Kendall often feels like scrabbling at the slimy stones inside a well of memories. Like if he loses his grip he might fall and get stuck down there for good.

“Fuck—” Kendall’s saying now, his voice cracking, “fuck— _please_ —” and Stewy relents.

He slips his fingers out slowly, watching as Kendall screws his eyes shut and sinks his teeth into his lower lip. As quickly as possible Stewy wriggles out of his boxer briefs, opens and rolls on the condom, and dispatches the remaining lube onto his dick. He can feel Kendall’s eyes on him the whole while.

This time when he leans over him, Stewy puts a hand on the back of Kendall’s knee, brings his leg up to hook over Stewy’s shoulder. Kendall wraps his other leg around Stewy’s waist, and when Stewy meets his eyes Kendall doesn’t look away.

“Yeah,” he says, low and just barely audible, answering a question Stewy didn’t ask. Stewy reaches between them to arrange himself, and then pushes in.

He’s still buzzing from the coke, and for a moment all of it—the heat of Kendall caressing what feels like his every frayed nerve ending, the richness of his voice in Stewy’s ear when he groans—borders already on too much. He closes his eyes against it, but this only heightens his remaining senses to a degree that will send him over the edge if he’s not careful, so he fixes his gaze on the freckles on Kendall’s shoulder and breathes steadily until he’s fully inside.

Only then does he glance up at Kendall’s face. He’s sweating with the effort of adjusting, his eyes screwed up in concentration, but as Stewy watches, the two vertical lines between his brows begin to smooth over and disappear like footprints in high tide.

Kendall opens his eyes just a sliver, looking somewhat stunned, and Stewy finds he can’t hold back a moment longer. He pulls back slowly before thrusting roughly back into him, and the noise Kendall makes seems to come not from his throat but from deep in his belly, like Stewy fucked it out of him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Stewy breathes emphatically, and does it again. His arms are already straining from holding himself up, but he hardly notices as he begins to work up to a steady rhythm. One of Kendall’s heels presses urgently into Stewy’s lower back, the other leg heavy over Stewy’s shoulder, leg hair chafing the side of his neck as he moves. Kendall’s hands are in constant motion—they’re in Stewy’s hair, on his shoulders, raking down his back—and he’s looking up at Stewy with a face that’s open and vulnerable, the death mask now completely shattered, the pieces falling away one by one. Underneath is someone Stewy recognizes.

The ache in his chest is back, only this time it’s like a physical pull—a hook through his ribs yanking him roughly out of the water and into harsh open air. Overexposed and burning, the way he felt eighteen years ago in his bedroom in the Allston triple-decker, pale streetlight filtering in through the curtains as Kendall fucked him into the mattress and accidentally told him he loved him for the first and only time. At twenty-one Stewy had never heard those words from anyone but his parents once a year on his birthday, and it was awful; his stomach immediately turned sour. He was grateful he’d already gotten off by then because he didn’t think he’d be able to otherwise.

Not that it had completely blindsided him per se. Sometimes at parties he would catch Kendall’s eye from across the crowded room and know exactly what he was thinking. Usually, if the look was accompanied by a jerk of the head in the direction of the bathroom, Stewy was thinking the same thing. But more disconcerting were the times Kendall would glance away quickly, like he didn’t want Stewy to know he’d been looking. The times he’d watch Stewy with something close to reverence in his eyes as Stewy sucked him off in yet another disgusting toilet stall, his fingers running through Stewy’s hair with a little too much tenderness. Like an embarrassing caricature of himself, always seeking out intimacy where he should’ve known he’d never find it. Stewy never blushed, but on these rare occasions he’d feel his face get hot and he’d think, _come on, man, that’s not what this is. That’s not the name of the game._

He never said it out loud, and Kendall never said what he was thinking in those moments either until that night. It was a quick mumble, bookended by copious swears as he came, but Stewy knew what he heard. Afterwards they lay stiffly in silence, coming down from the coke while the words hung over them, heavy and thick like the humidity before a storm. Stewy clicked his jaw agitatedly and Kendall literally wrung his hands. The kind thing to do would have been to say something lighthearted and unrelated, to provide a generous diversion and allow Kendall’s words to slink back under the rug. Instead, Stewy blinked up at the ceiling and said, very clearly, “No you don’t, Ken.”

After a horribly still beat he glanced over at Kendall. He too was staring at the ceiling, but even in profile his expression was so stricken that, looking at him, Stewy felt a wave of nausea pass over him. Those four words were even worse than the three that came before, and immediately he wanted to snatch them out of the air and obliterate them, but it was too late. It’s still the worst thing he’s ever said to anybody, and the regret is the kind that worms its way into his brain when he’s spiraling on downers or when he wakes up from a bad dream and can’t fall back asleep. It does so now, on the sofa in the Manhattan penthouse, shame welling up in the forefront of Stewy’s mind like blood under a blister as his arms give out and he drops to his elbows on top of Kendall. He can feel his cock pressed between their bodies. Kendall lays his head back, exposing his throat under Stewy’s lips.

If Kendall were to say now what he said that night, Stewy thinks, he’d respond differently this time around. Somehow or other he would set it right. He could even forgive him for walking away from the deal.

But Kendall doesn’t say anything, and when a few moments later he clutches at Stewy desperately and starts to shake apart, his moans slow to a halt and he comes silently. Stewy swears into Kendall’s neck, fucking him hard and fast until he follows in a dizzying wash of release.

They lie there for a few moments afterwards, catching their breath. Kendall’s leg slips off Stewy’s shoulder, off the edge of the sofa, his heel hitting the floor with a soft thud. Stewy’s still gently reeling when Kendall shifts under him and pats his back tentatively.

“Gotta shower,” he mutters.

“Hm?” Stewy lifts his head from Kendall’s shoulder and frowns. Kendall’s face is once again slack and neutral, eyebrows low on his forehead, mouth set and downturned.

Stewy pushes himself up on his arms and grimaces as he pulls out. He slumps against the back of the sofa, watching Kendall grab his discarded t-shirt off the floor and clean the mess off his abdomen. Stewy’s got Kendall’s come on his own stomach as well, and Kendall must notice at the same time because he sits up and wipes Stewy off next, like an afterthought.

“Thanks, dude,” Stewy says.

Kendall nods but doesn’t meet his eyes. Stewy can hear Kendall’s knees crack as he peels himself off the sofa and stands, his clothes gathered under his arm. Then he walks towards the living room doorway and disappears down the hall.

Stewy chews his lip. A few moments pass before he hears the distant sound of the shower spray hitting tile. Needing something to do, he gets up and walks naked to the kitchen, where he throws away the condom and washes his hands. He glances around at the stainless steel and pale granite and wonders if Kendall’s ever used any of it or if the only people who come in here are staff. He goes to the fridge and yanks the enormous door open; inside are a dozen half-empty bottles of condiments, a single Activia yogurt, and nothing else. He’s not sure whether this answers his question or not.

Back in the living room, he gets dressed and puts his shoes on but waits to don his coat. The sound of running water down the hall has stopped by now. After a few minutes spent aimlessly scrolling through his phone—he’ll deal with the missed call from Sandy later—he glances up and sees Kendall standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a different t-shirt and a different pair of sweatpants, his hair damp at the edges.

“Good scrub-a-dub?”

Kendall purses his lips. “Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh? You back on your Eeyore impersonation now? I thought we were getting somewhere.”

Kendall ignores him. “Listen,” he says. “I know you wanna know why I walked.”

Stewy blinks. He puts his phone down and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I mean… yeah, man. I mean, I already told you that’s not why I’m… but yeah. You can tell me, dude. Does he—so, what, does he have something on you?”

Kendall looks at him impassively. All those times in college Stewy told him he’d never get anywhere in business if his face couldn’t learn to keep a secret. It was probably some of the only good advice he’d ever given Kendall, and if Stewy could go back in time he’d kick his own ass for it.

“Right,” Kendall says. “Yeah, I, uh. I wanna tell you.” He walks farther into the room and sits down in an armchair across the coffee table from Stewy, lacing his fingers together in his lap and inhaling deeply through his nose.

“The truth is,” he says, meeting and holding Stewy’s gaze, “I walked because I saw your fucking plan. And my dad’s plan was better.”

That fucking line again. But this time, he doesn’t stutter or look away—he spits it in Stewy’s face. Stewy opens his mouth, closes it. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or to scream or to cross the room and punch Kendall in the face.

In the end he exhales heavily and drops his head, the heels of his hands pressing into his eyes. “Man. You fucking piece of shit.” He laughs once, a harsh burst of a sound.

“It is funny, isn’t it.” Stewy looks up at Kendall; he’s no longer poker-faced but angry, keyed up. He leans forward in the armchair, his lip curling, hands balled into tight fists in his lap. “How you still think you can just fuck me until I sing for you. Well it doesn’t fucking work like that anymore.”

“Fuck, Ken—you were the one who wanted me to!”

Kendall flushes, just slightly, but he lifts his chin anyway. “Yeah,” he says bitterly. “I did. And I got what I wanted from you, didn’t I.” He stands up and shoves his fists into the pockets of his sweatpants. “So, yeah. You can leave now.”

Stewy runs a hand along his jaw, tries to laugh again and ends up just expelling the remaining air from his lungs.

“Okay, Kendall. Alright.” He gets to his feet and starts to pull his coat on. “You know, I didn’t wanna have to do this, man, but okay—I got asked to do a live interview Monday morning. Steve Cox on _Working Money_. I was hoping after tonight I’d be able to call it off, but....”

Kendall stills, his eyebrows contracting, but he recovers quickly. “Like you’d give up an opportunity to put your face on the air. The fuck do I care?”

“You should care what I say about your daddy on national TV, Kenny, now that you’re his bitch again. Remember that little playbook we put together?” Judging by Kendall’s poorly-concealed scowl, he does. “Anyway, just giving you a heads-up. Call it the last friendly thing I ever did for your ass.”

He walks around the coffee table and heads for the doorway, but Kendall steps into his path. Their two-inch height disparity is more than that now, with Kendall barefoot and Stewy not, but Kendall still gets in his face, glaring up at him with the closest thing to ferocity he can muster. It might have turned Stewy on if he didn’t feel like puking.

“Here’s a heads-up for _you_ ,” Kendall says, voice dangerously low. “We’re gonna fucking destroy you.”

“That so?”

“My dad built this company. He’s been at the helm half a fucking century.”

“Are you talking yourself hard right now, dude? ’Cause I got places to be.” He attempts to sidestep Kendall but is blocked once again.

“Do you really think the shareholders are gonna vote to replace the only Waystar CEO there’s ever been with—what? An old queen and his coked-up rent boy?”

“Get the fuck out of my face.”

“You know that’s all you are to him, right? You think you’re so good at this game, but your head’s too far up your own ass to see who’s really using who.”

“Fucking look who’s talking,” Stewy snarls, taking a step forward so that Kendall’s forced to take one back. He’s exhausted; he can almost physically feel himself sag with the weight of it, but Kendall’s words have hit their mark and the sting is warping into something hot and angry.

“You were right, you know,” Stewy says, leaning in, “to be suspicious. I’m only here on Sandy’s orders.”

He lobs it at him like a Molotov cocktail, and he can see Kendall’s bravado shatter as it hits him full in the face. He blanches; he opens his mouth to respond and when nothing comes out, forgets to close it.

“Oh, yeah,” Stewy says, egging himself on, drawing his lips into a sneer. “He knows about everything. You and me.” He puts on his best impression of Sandy’s iced tea-sipping drawl. “ _Get ’im to squeal. And if he doesn’t, weh-hell, just pork ’im ’til he does._ He’ll be disappointed, of course, that this was the first time in human history that didn’t work.”

Kendall’s eyes are wide with horror, all attempts at cruelty abandoned now that Stewy’s flashed his own. Stewy successfully sidesteps him this time and strides down the hallway towards the elevator.

“But hey,” he calls over his shoulder. “At least I got my dick wet, right?”

He can hear Kendall stalking after him, but Stewy reaches the elevator first and punches the button. He watches his and Kendall’s distorted reflections separate down the middle as the chrome doors slide open, like a heavy-handed metaphor in a shitty film school project.

Stewy steps inside. Kendall juts his arm through the entrance so the doors can’t close.

“You’re lying.”

His voice is hard, but Stewy doesn’t miss the horrible, near-pleading shine in his eyes. For a moment, as Stewy looks at him, his resolve falters. _Of course I’m lying_ , he wants to say, _you idiot, you fucking dumbass, don’t you know I’d never do that to you? Don’t you know how much I care about you?_

But it would be meaningless to say such a thing to Kendall, because of course he doesn’t know. Stewy has spent decades making sure of it.

“Maybe,” Stewy tells him. “But I guess you’ll never fuckin’ know now, will you?”

Kendall swallows and takes a step back, his arm falling down limply at his side.

The elevator doors slide shut, and Stewy finds himself staring at his own blurry, warped reflection, his only company on the long journey down.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this is my first foray into this itsy bitsy fandom and it is not the kind of dynamic i usually write but i had a lot of fun with it. these two do not deserve happiness and in that way perhaps they deserve each other. hope it all works out for them!
> 
> title adapted from the deluxe version of pavement's debut album, [_slanted & enchanted: luxe & reduxe_](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n6C-O9CTME_PBClL6HVD_KS5QLGrIZNsQ). the music itself bears no significance to this story - kendall and stewy wish they were cool enough to listen to pavement but they are not. sad!
> 
> i'm [here](https://newsom.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you wanna drop by! bye bye


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